When the going gets tough, the tough get going. But when the going is good, should the tough start leaving? There are more than a handful of employees who get jittery when their taut relationship with the employer becomes much too comfortable and predictable.
It is like the unsettled feeling one sometimes gets while staring at a placid pool of clear water. There is an irresistible urge to churn the water a bit. Something similar rumbles when all metrics are in the green and there is no reason to quit a job but a gnawing part of you says it’s time.
Over the past 15 years of tracking people stories, I have noticed an ingrained concern across companies irrespective of their shape, size and field of business—that of losing their best hires.
And this is not about losing them to competition, because those whispers can be picked up in advance. It is knowing that there may be no incentive that can help sway a valuable employee away from leaving for reasons that don’t seem to make sense.
This is probably where companies go wrong: assuming that an increment above the median, an out-of-turn promotion and a companionable workplace are reasons enough for leaders of the pack to stick around. But what top bosses tend to overlook is that such sweeteners are rewards for performance that say little if anything about career growth. And some of the good hands are hankering for the latter.
Their grumbles are easy to miss because career growth is often considered a linear path in India Inc—as in, as you ascend the corporate hierarchy (read: change of designation and payscale), it is assumed that you have grown in your profession. It is partially true, but also a myopic way of looking at how a career chart should play out.
If the best performers are looking for growth, then they need to be placated with challenging projects that will either stump them or rewire the way they work. Most firms would scoff at the notion of an out-of-turn spotlight placed on a select few at the cost of disturbing the rest of the pack. This do-not -disturb outlook also has its logic, but it risks losing some valuable talent.
Meanwhile, a good performer—let’s call this person A-plus—is stuck in a matrix of routine work: meeting targets and getting the task completed. Almost without fail, A-plus gets the job done. And every single day, A-plus is closer to logging out for good.
This individual does have leverage within the business—a good track record, a boss who will negotiate and probably agree to any monetary demands or even a role change— and these are rare trump cards at a time of highly uneven demand across the Indian economy. But they will not work in this case.
For generations, India Inc erred by relying on the cultural conditioning that quitting is a sign of failure and the successful do not let go. This strongly held belief came unstuck during the covid pandemic, as people thought long and hard about work-life balance, work satisfaction and what a job or career ought to look like.
While companies and their staff rebooted and reprogrammed themselves, the enticing option of pursuing other interests, whetting one’s risk appetite by starting up by oneself, came to be seen by many as doable. Quitting is no longer associated with giving up, and even if A-plus summons the nerve to wave a white flag, there is no label of defeat attached to it.
This could explain why so many top-bracket performers who are well backed up financially seem ready to turn in their papers for no overt reason, pause and then take their next step.
There is a mid-life crisis in careers as well, and in today’s world, where there are no swan-songs, retirement ages are seen as just numbers and one can work on flexible time lines as a gig worker, consultant, mentor, etc, the urge to explore more satisfying possibilities has been growing. And for the likes of A-plus, the best time to do it is when the cards are favourably decked.
For companies that observe a split in their payroll between employees who are driven to perform and those who seem determined to dodge responsibility for outcomes, retaining the former is critical. The 80/20 cliche, of 80% of work done by 20% of the employees, has long been cast aside as a joke. But it does resonate in many workplaces.
While an employee like A-plus would be eager to take on new initiatives and risks without anxiety over slipping, many would rather not veer away from their comfort zone. Predictability at work commands a premium even for some of the better performers—those who at least defy Parkinson’s Law: work expands to fill the time allotted for it.
For many with a couple of decades of work experience on their resume and an investment portfolio, financial stability may not be a good enough reason to hold on to a job. Market crashes need not rattle them. They have seen at least three large ones and have grown accustomed to the crests and troughs of market indices.
Some investors can afford to give up their jobs simply because their investments can pay their basic bills, which frees them for other pursuits. Some may bet that walking out, only to return on better terms, is the best path to career growth.
Time spent away from desks, presentations and meetings could be used for testing out novel skills to create a resume in which corporate stints could look like stop-gaps. And if A-plus is on the verge of departure, we should wish this person well.
The author writes on workplaces and education at Mint.